How to Do Philosophy, vol. 1

As a public service, I would like to list some common kinds of responses to putative counter-examples. Now, the next time you're working on something and a good counter-example comes up, merely consult this list and adapt your favorite response. Feel free to mix and match.

You're welcome.

1) Bite the bullet: "This isn't a counter-example. I don't care what you say, but your example isn't an instance of F. Our intuitions about Fs are systematically wrong." Cover your ears and start humming loudly.
2) Tu Quoque/poison the well: "This counter-example is actually a problem for you, too. You might think your theory gives the right results here, but it doesn't." Feel free to stretch the counter-example and your opponent's theory until it becomes a problem for them.
3) Change your theory: "Your counter-example can be accommodated by a simple generalization of my theory." Feel free to change your theory as much as you'd like, make it ridiculously disjunctive, but remind your reader that it's still the same theory.
4) Vicious ad hominem: "Your response is motivated only by your irrational approach to the topic/other philosophical commitments/bad hygiene/lack of meaningful love life."
5) Reject conceptual analysis: "Sure, this is a counter-example, but I was never giving necessary and sufficient conditions in the first place. Conceptual analysis is dead anyway, right?" Cite Wittgenstein extensively.
6) Distraction/Change of Topic: "Well, sure, but in order to know that your case is a good counter-example, we'd have to know that we're not brains in vats!" or "Yes, this is a good counterexample, but -- look, monkeys!!"
7) Repeat your opponent's theory in a funny voice: (in a high-pitched, squeaky voice) "Look at me, I'm Van Inwagen, and I think that composition only occurs in the case of organisms!" (note: this works best in person)
8) Accept that this is a counterexample and that your life's work is for naught. Drop out, start a rock band. I'll play bass guitar.

Am I missing any?

Many-One Identity Relations

Some people (ahem) want to discuss the notion of a many-one identity relation. I'm a bit puzzled by such talk, since I think it's constitutive of our concept of identity that it's one-one. We don't balk at cases like "Benjamin Franklin is the inventor of bifocals", "Hesperus is Phosphorous", and "Cat Stevens is Yusuf Islam". We might even have many-many cases of identity, like "The candidates who raise the most money are the candidates who get the most votes", though there might be a good way to analyze this in first-order predicate logic with the usual representation of identity. I'm not exactly sure what to make of many-many claims, but set them aside for now.

One has plenty of examples of identity in language from which we try to build our notion, and or familiar identity sign is doing a pretty good job of this. If many-one identity were part of our ordinary concept of identity, we should expect to see all sorts of ordinary uses of it. So, what are the cases that force us to consider a many-one notion? If many-one identity is supposed to be so intuitive, how come we don't see examples of it? How come all uses of it seem ungrammatical and weird?

The only (ordinary) examples I can think of are examples that involve the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are (is?) one thing, which is God. Is your claim that many-one identity makes exactly as much sense as the Catholic Trinity?

[Note, by the way, that I don't think that claims about intuitions and linguistics are deeply informative about the nature of reality. I'm also not claiming that there's no room for some kind of generalized notion of identity to explain what we mean by "nothing over and above" kinds of claims. I just think it's a mistake to identify this notion with our ordinary uses of identity.]

Many-One Identity

I believe it makes perfect sense to say that some things xx are identical to one thing y. The table is identical to the four legs and table-top; my two legs, two arms, head, and torso are identical to me; etc. I wonder what your immediate gut reactions are to such claims.

-Einar

PS: I also wonder about your reactions to my last entry. Come on, let's bring this blog back to life!

Perfectly Natural Irreducibly Plural Properties

Consider the property of being scattered. It has the logical form: S(xx), where 'xx' takes any plurality as value (including a plurality consisting of only one thing, if one thing can be scattered). The property of being scattered has a fixed adicity (one-place), and it is an intrinsic property (or so it seems).

My question is: Can there be any perfectly natural (fundamental) properties of the logical form F(xx)?

-Einar

In the interests of getting this bog going again, and as an intuition check:

What do you make of the following statement:

(1) If it were to rain and not rain, then it would rain.

Does this strike you as trivially true, non-trivially true, or false?

There are no distributable properties?

Prima facie, there are distributional properties, distributable properties, and they are distinct. It is one thing, Josh Parsons (2004) suggests, to have a redness distribution (say, to be red in such-and-such places but not in others) and another to be just plain red. What I’m interesting in is the claim that there are no distributable properties; there are just distributional properties. Is this a coherent proposal?

One might object as follows. Suppose that D is a distributional property. Intuitively, the instantiation of D involves a distribution of instances of some distributable property D*. On the current proposal, there simply is no property like D*, so the instantiation of D cannot literally involve a distribution of D*-instances. But then how are we to understand what it is for D to be instantiated in the first place? Just as distributors need material to distribute, distributional properties need distributable properties distribute.

I think the thing to say in response to this concern is that it mistakenly, though understandably, assumes that the sense in which distributional properties are ‘distributional’ lines up closely with the everyday sense of the term. Instead, we should think of ‘distributional property’ more as a technical term.

I do not mean to suggest, however, that the notion of distributional property we are working with here is obscure. Suppose that Frank, pointing to Gary who is grimacing and then to Albert who is smiling, says, “There is pain to the left and pleasure to the right.” One might claim in this case that a proper part of the world consisting of Frank, Gary, and Albert involves a distribution of distributable properties including being in pain and having pleasure. Let us call this way of understanding distributional properties the ordinary conception of distributional properties.

One might claim instead that the proper part of the world mentioned above instantiates the distributional property being in pain-to-the-left-and-pleasure-to-the-right. Here the idea is that the truth-maker for Frank’s claim is that the Frank-Gary-Albert fusion instantiates the single aforementioned property. In this case the fusion does not instantiate being in pain and having pleasure qua distributable properties because there are no such properties. To contrast this conception of distributional properties with the ordinary one, call it the minimalist conception (given its commitment to distributional properties but not distributable properties).

Both the ordinary conception and the minimalist conception, as far as I can tell, are coherent, so it seems to me that so far we have not been given a good reason to think that the claim that there are distributional properties but no distributable properties is incoherent. What do you all think?

-Kelly

An Argument Against Unrestricted Composition

What's wrong with this argument?

www.logicoontologicalissues.blogspot.com

-Einar

Believing in Contradictions, why you should

Here’s a quick (and probably pretty bad) argument that it is rational to believe contradictions (or at least why it's not irrational to believe contradictions) inspired by conversation with Dan.

1) One ought not believe contradictions (assume for reductio)
2) Ought implies can (ask Pete about this)
3) Possibly, one does not believe contradictions (from 1 and 2)
4) Necessarily, one believe contradictions.

A few things to note at the outset: First, by ‘believe contradictions’, I don’t necessarily mean believe that p and not-p. Believing that p and believing that not-p (in "separate compartments" if you’d like) would do fine. The ‘cans’ and ‘possibles’ of this argument should be read along the lines of nomic possibility. Also, this is a proof by reductio in favor of believing in contradictions – you might think the argument is self-defeating for this reason. You might also think that ought implies can is a bad principle (or at least shouldn’t be applied to this kind of case). I think premise 4 stands in the most need of justification.

I'm not entirely sure how to justify (4). Maybe we could say that, for some complex propositions P, we might fail to believe that P, fail to believe that not-P, but believe that P or not-P; this might not be a contradiction itself, but maybe we could draw one out. Or maybe we could say that believing the premises of an argument but not its conclusion commits us to contradiction (maybe by way of a possible-worlds analysis of content -- in all belief-worlds where I accept the premise, I accept the conclusion, but by hypothesis, I don't accept the conclusion)... I'm not entirely sure where to go, but I still think there's an argument in the neighborhood. Thoughts?

[Note: I've taken back my original justification for (4).]

Experimental philosophy survey

You can participate in a survey on intuitions about mental states here.

-Kirk

Just, wow.

I used to think I was an atheist, but the existence of the banana has convinced me of the error of my ways. Check it.

Necessary Connections

Assume x and y are two non-overlapping (have no parts in common) contingent existents. It is then very plausible that there should be no necessary connections between them. That is, it should be possible for them to fail to co-exist as well as to co-exist. At least this is a fairly common assumption in the relevant literature.

It is further often assumed that two non-overlapping contingent existents should not be necessarily connected in virtue of some accidental intrinsic property they share.

I ask: how far should we push the spirit of such a denial of necessary connections? Is it plausible to hold that sometimes there should be no necessary connections between overlapping existents?

Take for example some plurality xx and its fusion ƒ(xx) (assuming it has one). Assume further that fusion is not a generalized form of identity (we all know what that means). Should we then hold that it is possible for xx to exist without ƒ(xx)? I think so. After all, they are not the same thing(s). Though it seems less plausible to hold that ƒ(xx) can exist without xx (though it is trickier than it might at first seem; cf. mereological essentialism). Do we here have a one-way necessary connection? Or, should we in general deny any necessary connection between any two things that are not identical (rather than non-overlapping)?

-Einar

PS: Personally, I think overlap is partial identity and that fusion is a form of identity, but most people don't for some reason. And that is why the above remarks are interesting.

Psycho-pluralism & QM

I'm interested in the Many Minds Interpretation of quantum mechanics (hereafter, MMI). A few other people are too. The people that go around defending it are usually committed to a thesis I'll call 'psycho-pluralism.' Psycho-pluralists believe that there are many subjective experiencers where there is usually believed to be only one such experiencer. Now, I know that I can't plausibly defend MMI--there's a lot of things about quantum probability I would need to know in order to do that properly. But I think I might be able to argue that MMI is better than the Many Worlds Interpretation (hereafter, MWI). The MWI involves commitment to what I'll call 'globo-pluralism': the view that there are many branches of the universe where we there is usually believed to be only one. Both psycho- and globo-pluralism are radically counterintuitive theses (i.e., the sort of theses that non-metaphysicians are moved to laughter by), so it is a prima facie strike against any theory to endorse them. (That said, the pluralisms I've formulated are pretty vague, since what is "usually believed" is far from clear.)

Here's one bad way to argue that MMI is better than MWI: MMI entails psycho-pluralism, but not globo-pluralism. MWI, on the other hand, entails commitment to both. Since one should avoid prima facie objectionable commitments whenever possible, one should endorse MMI rather than MWI. This argument fails miserably. For one thing, it seems that if one believed in globo-pluralism, one need not endorse psycho-pluralism, since it seems "usual" to believe there to be only one subjective experiencer for every individual located in some or other branch of the universe. So it seems to me that even if one endorsed globo-pluralism, one would not thereby be committed to psycho-pluralism. (Some philosophers have actually defended globo-pluralism and the view that holds there to be only one branch (viz., our branch) that is populated with conscious individuals. Interestingly, Peter Forrest likes a similar view of consciousness with respect to possible worlds.)

Here's a (slightly) better way to argue against MWI. There is independent reason to believe psycho-pluralism, but there is no such reason to believe globo-pluralism; therefore, MMI is preferable to MWI. This independent reason is courtesy of Peter Unger's "Mental Problem of the Many", which addresses the Problem of the Many that Lewis takes up in "Many, but Almost One." Suppose that consciousness is intrinsic. If x is an intrinsic property of F, then any object that is duplicate of F instantiates x. Assume your brain is conscious. Subtract a lone particle from your brain. Assume (reasonably, I think) that you remain conscious. Given such a possibility, there are two objects that are conscious that overlap parts of your brain: Your brain and your brain minus that lone particle. This is because 'you' would remain conscious even if you were to lose more than one particle of your brain. Plausibly, you could survive losing many particles and, less plausibly, you might survive the loss of an infinite number of increasingly small particles. It seems, then, that, independent of the considerations of quantum mechanics, psycho-pluralism might be true. (The premise doing the heavy-lifting here is the intrinsicality of consciousness. See Merricks and Sider's discussion of this issue in PPR (2001?))

I can think of no analogous argument for globo-pluralism (of the non-Goodmanian sort). I think this largely because being a world seems to be an extrinsic property unlike consciousness. So, absent an analogous argument for globo-pluralism, have I supplied you with some reason to think MMI is superior to MWI?

--Sam

acceptablity without truth

Consider the sentence:

(1) There are prime numbers

Arguably (1) is associated with two senses. Insofar as (1) is taken to be a claim about the numbers, namely, that some of them are prime, it is uncontroversially true. Insofar as (1) is taken to be a claim about the world, namely, that it contains (in a very loose sense) prime numbers, it is a substantive metaphysical claim. Very roughly, the first sense involves a presupposition of the existence of numbers whereas the second sense does not. I'm interested in your intuitions about two questions:

First, do you recognize these two readings of (1)?

Second, do you think that recognition of these two readings of (1) commits one to the Carnapian distinction between internal and external frameworks?

If you're in doubt as to how to respond, here's what you should do. Say "yes" in response to the first question, and say "no" in response to the second question. Then, if you're feeling ambitious, go on to present a detailed defense your answer to the second question. I will then be able to copy your comment and paste it into the blank document I have labeled "Draft for Metametaphysics paper". Thank you.

Edward

Truth and Contradictions

This may be more of a request for something to read than anything else, but here goes:

Imagine this dialogue between a proponent of dialetheism and a proponent of classical logic:

A: You think that my logic is hopelessly strange, but I can give you a pretty good idea of what you have in mind. There are several paraconsistent logics out there -- consider FDE. Instead of a valuation function assigning 1 or 0 to propositions, imagine that it assigns either {1}, {0}, {1, 0} or {null}. A proposition is true, intuitively, if 1 is a member of its valuation. The logical connectives then work in the expected way (for instance, A&B is true ({1} or {1, 0}) when 1 is a member of the valuation of A and B). We can then see exactly which inferences are valid and which aren't, but we should both agree that things aren't totally crazy -- plenty of things will be false (and only false) in this system, and we can have meaningful discussions about contradictions.

B: I understand your system, but you've just changed the subject. For me, truth and falsity are exhaustive and exclusive. This is constitutive of my notion of truth and falsity. You've provided a model of something else entirely -- and maybe your model could do some interesting work, but to give your gloss on truth in this model is just plain disingenuous.

Does this sound right? What should A's response be? I'm sure people have talked about this before in phil logic, but I haven't seen anything particularly interesting said at this point in the dialectic (Stalnaker's Impossibilities paper being the only thing I can think of)...

Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements

I admit that this is not metaphysics -- but it is pretty funny (especially at UMass)!

(And since I am not a metaphysician, what else but some stupid jokes could Barak have expected when he invited me to contribute to this blog?)

-Kirk

Are fundamental properties essentially fundamental?

A fundamental property is a property such that other properties are instantiated in virtue of its instantiation, but it isn’t instantiated in virtue of the instantiation of any other property. In Plurality Lewis [60, ft. 44] claims that if P is a fundamental property (a “perfectly natural” property in his terminology), it's essentially fundamental; i.e., if P is fundamental, then it's necessary that, for any object x, if x has P, then there is no object y and property Q such that x has P in virtue of y having Q. Here the idea is that fundamentality is absolute rather than world-relative.

I’m sympathetic with the idea that fundamental properties are essentially fundamental in this sense. Hence, if priority monism (PM) is true (the thesis that (i) the proper parts of the world exist ultimately in virtue of the world’s existence; and (ii) the properties of the proper parts of the world are instantiated ultimately in virtue of the properties the world itself instantiates), and if a distributional property (in Josh Parson’s sense) D is the one and only fundamental property, then D is essentially fundamental. Hence, there is no world in which D is instantiated in virtue of any other property.

Ben Caplan in conversation suggested something like the following. Following Peter Vallentyne, a contraction of a world is ‘a world “obtainable” from the original one solely by “removing” objects from it’. Consider a world, w, that is a contraction of the actual world, @, that lacks one of @’s proper parts, say my left shoe. (As a contraction of the actual world, W is otherwise as similar to the actual world as possible.) Suppose that PM is true, and if PM is true, then PM is necessarily true. So PM is true in w. Let D* be the global distributional property that’s fundamental in w. Ben suggested that it seems that D* is instantiated in the actual world, and D* is instantiated in virtue of the instantiation of D. But if this is right, then D* is fundamental in one world but not in another, so fundamental properties aren't essentially fundamental.

I’m curious what you all think of this example. Do you think this case undermines the claim that fundamental properties are essentially fundamental?

-Kelly

Sider on quantifier variance and equivocation

In "Ontological Realism", Ted Sider imagines a dispute between David Lewis (DKL) and Peter van Inwagen (PVI) about whether there are tables.

DKL: "Tables exist"

PVI: "Tables don't exist"

According to Sider, one type of ontological deflationist (D1 in the paper) diagnoses the disagreement thus: "PVI and DKL express different propositions with 'Tables exist'; each makes claims that are true given what he means; so the debate is merely verbal". Such disagreement presumably arises from some equivocation. And the question Sider considers next is: 'Where is the equivocation located?'. The only possibilities are 'table' and 'exist'. He argues that the equivocations on the former are of no help to the deflationist account, so he must hold that it is 'exist' that is equivocal.

I don't follow him here. I think that the deflationist has a third option: the words 'table' and 'exist' are univocal; however, the disputants are allowing their quantifiers to vary over different domains. And it is this that accounts for the different meanings each attaches to the sentence "Tables exist".

Perhaps what I have in mind will come out more clearly in light of another sample sentence that Sider discusses. "Consider a world in which there exist exactly 2 material simples, which are not arranged in the form of a living thing. Of that world, DKL would accept, while PVI would reject: [Sider writes this out in logical notation] "there are at least three things"." In the logical expression of this sentence, there are: quantifiers and variables, truth-functional connectives, and the identity predicate. But, says Sider, the connectives and identity are univocal, so it must be the quantifier that is equivocal.

I don't follow this. Why not say that the quantifiers have a univocal meaning and that the disputants recognize different domains? DKL recognizes a domain that includes tables and PVI recognizes a domain that does not. This sort of difference will provide the deflationist with a means of accounting for how DKL and PVI are "talking past each other". But, notice, there is no equivocation in the quantifier 'exists', only a disagreement about the range of entities over which 'exists' ranges.

Here's an example of what I have in mind. Consider the universal quantifier and two models, M1 and M2. The domain of M1 contains both of my feet and nothing else. The domain of M2 contains both my feet and the Eifel Tower. If I say "everything is a foot", what I have said is true in M1 and false in M2. I may get in an argument with someone. My disputant says, "What Ed says is wrong, something (the Eifel Tower) is not a foot; so not everything is a foot". This disagreement, like the one Sider discusses, is not substantive. But the reason for its lack of substance is not a disagreement about the meaning of "everything" but rather that we are talking about different models with different domains. As I understand the domain of quantification, everything is a foot, and as my disputant understands the domain of quantification, something is not a foot.

Ed

Must the world be junky?

Here's an argument I came up with while being depressed recently. I haven't really thought about this argument at all, but I think there is something to it. I guess I would deny premise 1, 5, and 7.

(1) For any x, if x has finitely many parts, then there must exist something else distinct (non-overlapping) from x which accounts for (or perhaps contrasts) its finitude
(2) If the Universe has finitely many parts, then there must exist something else distinct (non-overlapping) from the Universe which accounts for (or perhaps contrasts) its finitude
(3) there exists nothing else distinct (non-overlapping) from the Universe which accounts for (or contrasts) its finitude (conceptual truth about the Universe)
(4) Hence, the Universe has infinitely many parts
(5) For any xx, if xx are infinite, then xx are "too many" to compose an object (conceptual truth about the infinite? Think of the notion of infinity that was prevelant up until the madman Cantor.)
(6) The parts of the Universe are "too many" to compose an object ((4),(5))
(7) All and only finitely many things compose something
(8) Hence, the Universe is junky ((4),(6),(7))

-Einar

First Post!

Hey y'all. Ramblings and half-baked ideas to follow.

- Barak